


an apology letter to the both of us

by broken_social_contract



Series: each choice, a universe [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_social_contract/pseuds/broken_social_contract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Regina is a doctor.</p><p>[WARNING: Mention of character death. And, also just death and dying in general.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	an apology letter to the both of us

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. Mistakes are mine, alone (and I'll try to fix them later)

_because I don't have to be in hell if I don't want to be.  
- _ Matthew Dickman, _'I Made You Dinner, Bob Kaufman!'_

 

 

 

\--

 

The wail of the monitor fills the room, insistent and sharp.

                                      

Regina looks down, at the boy’s exposed chest, at the wires and the pink-red mark forming where hands had pressed down hard over and over and over. Her eyes skim over his face, only for a second, before she wrenches her attention away to focus on the intern hovering at the door as if trying to escape.

                                            

“Call it,” she orders with a bite to her voice.

 

The intern stares blankly back at her in response.

 

“Call it, doctor.” Regina repeats. The words hiss through bared teeth as the rest of the team begins to shift around the bed.

 

The intern’s eyes cut to the boy. A jolt seems to run through her body the way it trembles, vibrates really because the shaking is so subtle. “I—,” she says without looking away from the boy. Her mouth goes slack before she can continue.

 

“Time of death,” Regina says in that flat voice she has developed for times like this. Her gloves make a snapping sort of sound as she tugs them off, the latex stretched too thin before shrinking to original size. “4:02 AM.”

                                                      

On her way out, she nudges the intern forward, hand pushing at pink scrubs to incite movement. She tells herself _it’s July, it’s July_ , -- a mantra for her sanity this month, her Serenity Prayer (mostly to: _accept the things I cannot change_ , like fresh out of school interns) -- as she maneuvers the intern towards the restrooms around the corner. By next month, it will be over (mostly, anyway), first month jitters smoothed into something more professional-looking, less wide-eyed and terrified and green.

 

Hadn’t Regina been a mess her first month, too?

 

She had almost given the wrong drug twice, misdiagnosed more than a handful of patients which her resident had thankfully caught.

 

How many times had she considered quitting that first week alone when she didn't think she could handle the unending stream of kids who were hanging by kite strings and waiting for miracles she was supposed to provide?

 

“Come on,” Regina prods, throwing the door open and leading the intern inside. “You need to get yourself together before we talk to his parents.”

 

“Jesus, I _can’t_ do that. What the hell would I even say?” The intern disappears into one of the empty stalls.

                                                       

Regina hears the woman’s knees hit the ground, quickly followed by a pattern of retching and then wet, heaving gasps.

                                                          

“You should’ve picked a different career then.”

 

The response is lost to a round of gagging, so Regina waits until the only sound left is the intern’s ragged breathing.

                         

“Look, I know it’s hard. Two weeks ago you were a student, and now you have your own patients whose lives depend on you. I was in your shoes not too long -- ” She starts, repeating the same speech she has given interns for the last four years.

 

“—is there any way I can get a pass?” the intern interrupts, reemerging from the stall with a frown directed in Regina’s direction. Strands of blonde hair have come loose from her pony tail and have fallen in front of her face. Her eyes are swollen, and the bags under her eyes suddenly more pronounced.

 

Regina scowls. “I’m sorry…” Her eyes snap down to the intern’s hip in an attempt to read the intern’s name off her badge, but finds nothing where the hospital issued lanyard should be.

 

“Swan, Emma Swan.” the intern supplies. She smiles faintly at Regina before lowering her head to her cupped hands collecting water under the faucet.

 

“Dr. Swan, talking to your patient’s family is not something you can _‘get a pass’_ on.” Regina feels her patience wear thin instantly. There are charts she still needs to review, notes to prep for morning rounds with her team. She thinks of the empty hospital room she had laid claim to earlier that night, the warm bed she could be occupying for a ten minute nap – fifteen minutes even, if she can slow her thoughts down quick enough.

 

“Emma,” she corrects after wiping her mouth and drying her hands. “Just call me Emma.”

 

Regina starts in on a lecture about professionalism. Emma raises her hands up to interrupt, fingers spread out as she holds them in front of her, as if to stop the assault of Regina’s words.

 

“Hey, look, he just – he reminded me of my kid,” Emma says. Her voice goes quiet on the last few words like she’s telling Regina a secret, a message she never wanted to leak to the world.

                                                                       

“Same age, same brown hair, same height, same a lot of things,” Emma continues, flatly now, as if listing items on a grocery list. “He, uh, he died, too. Not too long ago actually. He was kidnapped, and we didn’t reach him in time.”

                                       

Regina throat goes tight and hot. “I’m sorry.”

                                       

“I know.” Emma says, voice rough and full of something Regina has heard from too many parents in the last few years – regret and longing and fear and anger and more, always more and too much and all at once, “Look, just this once can you make an exception?”

 

Regina finds herself nodding despite her better judgment.

 

 

-

 

 

The next time Regina sees Emma again is in the parking lot of the hospital at the end of her shift.

                         

Emma is leaning against the hood of Regina’s car, aviators balanced on the bridge of her nose and a leather jacket clutched tight in her hands. The glasses make it hard to read her face, though Regina can see that her mouth is pressed in a thin line, the pink of her lips almost invisible.

                                       

“Why would you pick this?” she says when Regina approaches her. “Why would you pick _any_ of _this_?” She gestures wildly at the building behind Regina.

 

“I wanted to help others. Isn’t that why we all pick _this_?” Regina’s brow furrows together. She’s missing the point of the question, she knows this because the scowl deepens on Emma’s face forming harsh lines around her mouth.

 

“To help others?” Emma echoes. Regina notes that there is something unstable in how she sounds, something frantic, something scrambling for a ledge or firmer ground.

 

Maybe the boy from earlier had been too much, too soon.

                                                      

Had this woman attended grief counseling after it happened? Had she prepared herself for working in a children’s hospital?

                                       

If Regina had son… she couldn’t even fathom that pain. She faced it every day at the hospital, saw it on the face of every parent who received the worst sort of news in the world. No, she couldn’t stomach that.

                                                 

“Regina, you work in a hospital with sick kids!” Emma pushed herself off the hood of Regina’s car and stumbled close, close enough that Regina could see the tear tracks on Emma’s cheeks. Close enough to smell alcohol on her breath. “With dying kids, kids who look like Henry. Jesus, that kid in there…”

 

_Henry?_

 

“Emma,” Regina says, placing a hand on Emma’s shoulder in an effort to soothe the other woman. “I think we should go back inside.”

                                       

“Why would you scrub everything?” Emma asks, her voice shrinking to something impossibly small as quickly as her voice had risen in volume just seconds earlier. “What the hell were you thinking? How is this a good idea?”

 

Regina has no time to respond to any of Emma's crazy questions ( _scrub what? what did she scrub?_ ) because Emma presses their mouths together in a kiss where lips and teeth knock against each other. Emma’s hand curled around Regina’s neck keeps her in place, pressed so close to Emma that she can feel the pressure of Emma’s aviators against her face, Emma's body pushing into hers, Emma’s leather jacket squished between them.

 

Emma tastes like salt and hard liquor and something else, _something else_ Regina can’t place. Familiar and foreign at the same time.

 

It takes a second for the shock to fade and for her hand to come between them. She pushes roughly at Emma’s chest to separate them, to give herself room to breathe. Emma’s aviators clatter to the pavement as she stumbles into the car, her legs striking the bumper with a thump. No one bends to pick up the glasses.

 

“What are you doing?” Regina squeaks, indignantly.

                             

“I…” Emma stops and studies her for a long second, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

 

Regina watches her expression go from curious to empty in a matter of moments, the light in her eyes snuffing out to a cold sort of dullness.

 

Emma shrugs her jacket on and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I thought you were someone I knew.” Her tone is even and controlled as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened between them.

 

Regina’s mouth dips into a frown. “Emma, I think it might be a good idea if we sit inside and talk.”

 

Regina moves towards her cautiously. Her foot drags slowly against the asphalt, careful to avoid making sharp movements of any kind. She doesn’t think Emma is a danger to anyone, not even to herself, but Regina needs her to stay put, needs her to stay calm, needs her to stay rational enough to accept some sort of medical consult.

 

She reaches out to touch her again, hoping to grab hold and soothe, but Emma ducks from her hand.

                                                                    

“No,” Emma’s laugh pries something loose in Regina’s chest that rattles in every direction, leaving her sore from the inside. “I’m fine. My kid, he believed in these stories, and I thought –“ She doesn’t finish the sentence, laughing that same laugh and shaking her head instead as she side steps away from Regina.

                                       

“You need help.” Regina says. Her tone wavers into mild irritation.

 

“No, I don’t.” Emma explodes, the words seem to splinter with a _bang_ in the air around them. Regina flinches at the noise.

                                       

“Emma, I don’t--”

                                       

Emma draws in a deep breath and cuts her off. “I’m sorry,” she exhales. Her body shakes as if the breath releases the rest of what has been wanting to burst out of her. The curl of Emma's mouth into a hard smile nudges at the back of Regina’s head, a ghost of a thought that evaporates as soon as she reaches out for it. “I should’ve left you alone like you asked.”

                                                                       

“I know it doesn’t matter to _you_ ,” Emma adds quickly, “But, he’d be really proud.”

 

Regina wants to know who _he_ is (and _who are you?_ and _who do you think I am?_ ) but Emma’s already turned around, darting off faster than Regina can hold on to her, leather sliding between Regina’s fingers when she tries to reach out one last time.

 

Emma yanks open the driver-side door of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and disappears inside of it away from view.

 

Something like loss, something vague and heavy and strange, uncoils in her stomach as the car peels out the parking lot.

 

 

\--

                           

 

There are no Emma Swans in any of the house staffs at the hospital.

                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know I cheated. It's not 100% AU.


End file.
